PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller

by Michelle Muckley

  “We have missed seeing you around here. It’s nice to see you back.” I have been missed. I find myself wanting to sit in her lap like an oversized child with her arms around me, her hands stroking my hair away from my face. She is touching me and I do not flinch. I image myself falling asleep with my head resting on her ample chest which looks soft and cushiony. She could be no more genuine with an engraving or a stamp. Or a watermark. To be given the mark of water usually makes something official and worthy. It made me officially crazy, and worthy of not much at all.

  “Really?” I pry.

  “Really?” she mocks, looking to Gregory, who is still smiling to himself and feeling proud of what he has achieved with me. That I am here to walk and talk and smile politely is quite something it would seem. Like a baby who eats and sleeps and shits in its nappy, I do very little and please her a great deal. In this moment, life has never been easier. “Of course we missed you. You must come back here to swim like you used to, and then come and find me for your lunch.” She smiled at me again, patted me on the cheek and was then gone as quickly as she arrived.

  “That was a little strange,” I say to Gregory after she leaves. He has stopped smiling now, the remnants of it visible only if you inspect him as closely as a crime scene.

  “Not really. You came here twice or three times a week.” He turned and walked away before turning back briefly to beckon me to follow.

  We continue up the corridor, me a few steps behind. He waited for me by the doorway at the far end. I realise I have no memory of this door being there and wonder if something else has failed to stay in my head, another bit of the past which slipped out. But I have other memories which make me think that this time at least, I am right. I remember the wall that used to be there, and the table that sat in front of it that housed a collection of well read books, the pages yellow and fusty, a smell that guests seemed to love. The floral settees that used to sit in collections of three have been replaced by leather seats, coffee tables scattered throughout like a light dusting of snow. The walls that were once pink are now a shade of off-white, like egg shell or bone. I remember the flowers over the fireplace. I know that if I got close they would be made of satin, red and yellow tulips designed to last forever as if the promise of spring could be captured and brought inside. I am certain that right about where Gregory is standing there were two oversized wingback chairs. They were once just far enough from the chimney to feel the heat of the fireplace, but not so close that your skin would chafe as if you were sat too close to the flames.

  “You can see there are some changes here, yes?” I have spent six months away from this place. I see that there is still a spectacular view from the far windows which frame the lake like a postcard, and I can imagine the tourists taking pictures from here before they return to their boring homes that are swallowed up by the concrete of suburbia. It is quite a beautiful view, if it doesn’t make you want to kill yourself.

  “You have painted?” I ask.

  “Yes, and here we have extended the windows to allow more light to come through, but look,” as if he knows the extra windows need justification, “I have created areas with the settees and chairs, the way they are arranged. There is no chance that you have to look at the lake, if you don’t want to. You can look across from these seats,” he ushers me forwards and eases me into one of the armchairs, “and see nothing but the forest beyond.” As he casts open his arms I see that his statement is true. I can sit here and appreciate the view without a single droplet of water impeding my enjoyment.

  “It’s beautiful, Gregory.” He smiles again and I see the face that I saw the first time when he stepped out from the party and offered to light my cigarette, before he insisted I quit. He has a perfect smile in spite of his oversized teeth, a combination of cheeky and self assured. It is so because he actually closes his teeth together for it. Most smiles I have noticed are all about what the lips do. But for Gregory, his lips simply tighten up over his clenched teeth. This combined with the gentle tip back of the head, his self-assured I knew it look, combines together to appear, in my eyes, quite perfect. He is doing it now, and I realise how I have missed it. He leans down to my level as I am sat in the forest view armchair, his eyes meeting mine. “There’s more.”

  We move back through to another new set of doors which appear to lead out onto a deck that I do not remember. He stops outside them, blocking the view the best he can. “These doors are not for you. They are beautiful, yes, but it is those doors that are yours.” He points across the lounge to a set of far doors, identical to those behind him. I see that somebody has put a red bow on the handles, linking them together. After walking towards the door he turns to me and says, “This is a space for you. I can’t change everything Charlotte, but when I envisaged this plan, admittedly long before the events of the recent past, I felt that this would make you happy. Happier,” he settles for. He produces a pair of scissors from his pocket and pushes them into my hand. He steps back as I wriggle my leather gloves into the handle and he holds out his hand, exposing the veins in his wrists. For a second I cannot help but consider how inviting they appear to me, now that I am clutching a blade for the first time in six months.

  The red bow stares back at me, limp and hanging as if compliant with its imminent catastrophe. I wonder who chose the red, and if it was Gregory. He is anxious of my holding scissors, as if he can read my mind although nothing sharp and painful has ever been appealing to me, even before he locked away the sharpest of our kitchen knives. I have never been a cutter, even in the darkest of moments. The bow is the colour of blood, of life, the same red that has flowed through me and out each month until recently when life started growing inside of me. I wonder if subconsciously he has attached this bow to watch me cut through danger, the colour of warning, of human fear. To watch me march ceremoniously through, leaving an old life in pieces on the floor would show bravery and willing, a way forward. I see the colour of sex staring back at me, of excitement, and lust. It is the colour men celebrate as they pull the sheets out from underneath their virgin brides. She bleeds! She bleeds! She is pure because she bleeds for me. Men want the blood of their women. They want to be the one to make her bleed, and only then do they feel her worth. I must not have bled enough for Gregory, my sacrifice insufficient, and I see now why I have been supplemented.

  “Go on, cut the ribbon.” He is smiling so much, but his smile of beauty has been replaced by an expectant smile, his mouth gaping and pink, wet and slick. It’s the face Ishiko has seen, just as I have, right before he touches a woman’s skin. It is the face I saw in the drawing room as he pulled and twisted against my breast before retreating to his own pleasures in the shower. It is excitement.

  “OK,” I say as I edge the blade to the cloth. I make only one cut before the bow falls away. Without hesitation he opens the door, holding it with one hand and sweeping me through with the other. I feel the cold air as I step outside and further away from the roaring fireplace. I see a table before me. There is a deck here that was never here before. It is wooden like a pier at the seaside, but beneath me there is solid ground. I look left and see that the new deck is littered with tables, glass topped wicker tables like the one from our conservatory. The deck is almost enclosed by glass, and only occasionally interrupted by a white column holding the whole thing together. There is almost an uninterrupted view of the lake in that direction. But not here in front of me. Here it is something different. It is something enclosed and secretive, kept away from the rest of the deck. It is like a secret garden, hidden by wall or gate.

  We sit and order coffee for Gregory and tea for me without the milk. Patricia brings us a small plate of sandwiches and scones and smiles unflinchingly as if she were at a wedding or other such special event. I wipe my gloves with a disinfectant wipe before allowing them to air dry before I handle the first scone. Gregory pretends not to have noticed. I indulge in two of them, cream and jam on both, and Gregory looks on adoringly. I get some on my glove
s but I wipe them without any panic on the napkin. If there had been a plate of over one hundred scones I would have worked my way through them, just to stay here with him looking at me this way.

  “Charlotte, life has been very difficult of late. I think you would agree.” I look up from my scone and see that the atmosphere has changed. A fog from the past has been allowed in and it has settled over us. “I want to say that I am sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” I ask.

  “For many things. Perhaps the first, is simply that I am sorry that this has happened to us. I am sorry that six months ago you were so terribly depressed and I let you out of my sight for long enough for you to do what you did.”

  “It isn’t necessary, Gregory.” I leave my last bite of scone, knowing there is no point in eating it anymore. The ability to forget has passed us by. We are back in reality, the rot came back, our hypnosis over.

  “No it is, Charlotte. We must face things. We have been avoiding each other of late. Even on your birthday I could barely bring myself to talk to you.” For the second time today I do not know which world I am living in but I am sure it is not my own. “And then in the drawing room.” He waits, reflecting on his animal behaviour. “I am sorry. What I did was inappropriate.” I wanted to tell him that it was the first time I had felt wanted and a part of his life as an equal since before the accident. I didn’t say anything for fear of his judgement, but also because I found the fact of being groped like that and being so pleased by it a sad prospect. Was there nothing any better in our life together than being felt up like a cheap whore?

  “I would just like to try and move forward together, Gregory. We have other things to think about now. The baby.” I see his head drop a little, a weight on his shoulders, an extra worry he could do without.

  “Yes. The baby.” He takes a sip of his coffee and a small bite of a crustless tuna sandwich. He doesn’t really eat like a man. He eats like a ballerina might eat, all fingers and attention to detail. He places the sandwich back on his plate and looks up. “I must say it was quite a shock. But, you are now pregnant, and, we will deal with it according.” I feel like he is arranging a dinner menu and has just found out that he has a missing ingredient, or a drain pipe has burst and he will deal with the problem.

  “I don’t feel that you are happy about the baby, Gregory. You didn’t come to the hospital. You don’t want to tell any of our friends.”

  “And you missed your appointment with Dr. Abrams this week, Charlotte.” He lets that idea just hang over us for a moment before carrying on. “I can’t help but feel this baby is a distraction that will lead you astray, down a path that you shouldn’t be on.” He thinks I missed it on purpose.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t go.”

  “Did you miss it on purpose?” It’s a reasonable question. I have long complained about seeing Dr. Abrams.

  “No,” I lie.

  “Please tell me the truth.”

  “I said no. I know the appointments are important.” I actually do know this.

  “I can’t go through it again, Charlotte, I just can’t.”

  “I said no.” The final words to leave my lips were sharp edged and taut. I was sick of people assuming that without one weekly visit to the psychiatrist I would suddenly return to craziness, descend into madness, loop the loop or whatever else people have said about me over the last six months. So what, I think to myself. I tried to kill myself. Get over it. It’s done. I failed. I’m still here. Stop choking the life I have left out of me by pressuring me and hating our baby.

  People assume, and particularly Gregory, that I have no insight into my reality. They think, oh, she’s insane, we must make her understand and see what happened. They think that I cannot see the abnormality of my actions. They think that I believe that it was acceptable to become obsessed by my father’s death. They believe that I thought it was acceptable to sink our boat. They believe that when I told Gregory that I wanted to join my father at the bottom of the lake that I actually believed we would be reunited and sit together, talk about the years since his passing. They take everything so literally, as if my words are to be interpreted as actual events in reality. I had hoped that the taking of my life would prove a private matter. I had been considering it for some time, and had certainly given my method of choice a degree of internal debate. I knew it had to be in the lake, for it was the only place and method that would satisfy my needs and serve to avenge my survival years before. And yet there were many considerations. Rowing boat? Hired boat? Gregory’s boat? Weighed down? Drugged? Drunk? All of the above? I had used up a lot of time. A lot of conscious and sensible thought. A lot of planning had gone into my death, but clearly not enough, for I still am here talking about it now. I have heard enough, and this conversation is over. What began quite pleasantly has come to a sudden end. Much like that day on the lake.

  “Shall we leave, Gregory. I have to see Marianne before she leaves for the weekend.” Marianne was in all truth avoiding me. I saw her once through the window and I know she saw me but she ignored me, ducked her head, and quickly went back inside. Perhaps she was ashamed. It’s much harder to judge a crazy person when they know you too have been touched by the same affliction.

  “Charlotte, please just promise me that next week you will keep the appointment.” I was already standing up, picking up my bag and fixing my gloves. “It’s very important for us. For you.”

  “OK, OK, don’t panic. I’m not about to jump off a cliff, Gregory.”

  “It’s not the cliffs that scare me, Charlotte. It’s the water that is much closer to home.” And yet he brings me near it. I consider taunting him with this fact for a second or two but instead, tired to fight and tentative of my situation, I say this.

  “I will go.”

  Chapter eleven

  The journey back home was quiet and I used the free time to consider my meeting with Marianne. I was keen to get to speak to her before she left for the weekend, and before Mrs. Wexley returned home. Our first trip out together had been very successful for me. Finding out that she too had a requirement for anti-depressants was a big result. It brought her closer to me without even trying. It gave me knowledge, which everybody knows is power. I was building up a nice picture of her instability, and during my waking moments I had spent some time considering what John Wexley might have told her about her turning down the pictures around the house. I wondered if he had forbidden her from doing so again, and if when he went to work she still did it. I wondered if he knew that she was clinically depressed or if it was news to him. Perhaps he knew and had realised how close he was to the fire and my information was just added fuel, a fresh breath of oxygen for the flames to grow again.

  As we pull up outside our house, the road as quiet as the air between us, Gregory seems distracted by our previous conversation. He fidgets with the keys, turns off the engine and shuffles about in his seat. I attempt to get out of the car, but I feel his apologetic fingers grappling at my arm and he clearly has something that he wants to say. I am conscious of the time, and know that Marianne will be leaving soon.

  “Charlotte, please. Just a moment. I want to talk to you without Ishiko in hearing distance.” I bet he does.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s important that some things are said in private and I do not want to discuss your medical history with our housemaid.” He is happy to get her in his bed though.

  “What do you want to say?”

  “Charlotte, it’s the fundraiser tonight. You know this is important to me, and The Sailing Club. It has been arranged for several months, and I was hoping that we might be able to spend a pleasant day together and then attend the fundraiser tonight. I had rather hoped that we could remain on pleasant terms.” Now I understand. The public version of Gregory and Charlotte has an engagement tonight and we have to put in an appearance. We will be expected to attend and smile along like we always do when there are important strangers to impress. He was hoping that this morning w
ould butter me up for a pleasant and easy evening. He wants me to be the good wife that he had hoped he was marrying when he stood there and promised to love me forever. There are expectations to meet as Gregory Astor’s wife, and being crazy and post suicidal was never on the list. He loves The Sailing Club, even though he no longer owns a boat. He is unlikely to buy a new one.

  “We will attend the fundraiser and everything will be as you expect it to be.” I spot Mrs. Sedgwick in the corner of my eye staggering up the brow of the hill to our driveway. “I will behave,” I say, a little more sarcastically than intended. “You have my word.”

  “It’s at The Sailing Club, Charlotte.” He has already said this, but he feels the necessity to reinforce the fact, knowing full well that the last time I was there was........eventful.

  “I said you have my word.”

  “You realise we will be by the water?”

  “It’s a sailing club, Gregory. And I have been there before, remember?” Dana is waving at us with one hand, and the other is resting on her knee which I think she needs surgery on but that is just my own assessment.

  “No strange behaviour? No staring out at the lake?” He really wants to tell me not to give them any reason to gossip about me. They already suspect you to be crazy, don’t make it worse. Most people who attend The Sailing Club go along with my accident being exactly that. Maybe they even believe it. Who knows. Who cares?

  “Yes, Gregory.” My words are flat and dull, petulant like a teenager who just wants the cautionary discussion to end. We both get out of the car at the same time, doors slamming behind us just a little too loudly to go unnoticed. I could see Marianne in the window of the Wexley's lounge, praying most likely that Dana would interrupt me and prevent me knocking the door. I bolt towards The Wexley’s house and instead interrupt Dana Sedgwick’s progress.